I was wondering if there are any successful .mobi commerce sites? Particularly just a .mobi site without a sister .com site. Also, if any owned by individuals rather than a large corporation.

Just wanted to know if there are any other sites or persons who have created a successful .mobi commerce site. Hopefully they would like to share their story. The dos and do nots.

I have one .mobi I recently acquired. I do not have a sister .com site. Just a nice .mobi name. Do you think it will work? How best to advertise it spending little to no money? And if one has to spend money to advertise it, where is the best place to do so and about how much can one expect to pay each month.

I want to launch my .mobi and not sit on it.

Thank you so much for all your kind inputs.

andymoore

05-05-2010, 03:57 PM

I run a .com and .mobi for one of my sites. I know that's not the scenario you asked for but I noted nobody else has chipped in....

The .mobi makes more money than the .com - they both use PayForIt http://payforit.mobi/ the .com with the web version that requires pin authentication and the mobile version uses carrier based connections to authentice hence it has a better conversion rate.

I just ran some stats to highlight the difference:

.com = £4,175.13
.mobi = £5,849.00

Do:

make it easy to buy - i know this sounds like a no brainer but too many e-commerce sites suck and make it hard for the user to do what you want
fulfill a need that is neglected or better what someone else is doing
make a site with great content. unique content not found elsewhere online would be a bonus.
make a site with sound navigational structure
follow best practices
utlise mobile billing systems (not Bango see below for why)
use analytics and tracking to make informed decisions

Don't:

use Bango, I don't trust them - they sit in the middle of people giving them money and the merchants who should be getting the outpayment but in my experience with them I placed an order as a customer but got nothing as a merchant. I am not alone in having had this happen.

write your site in crappy markup
use flash, javascript (unless you know the handset supports it) or uncompressed images

There's a lot more I could come up with but really the laws and rules of e-commerce apply as much to mobile as they do to web.

limomobi

05-06-2010, 04:59 AM

Thank you for these tips Andy. I can tell you are a very smart person. Don't know what Bango is. But I will stay away from it. That is the business name - Bango? What is markup? Sorry for not knowing these words.

Please feel free to chime in everyone.

andymoore

05-06-2010, 09:05 AM

Welcome, thanks.

Bango.com

Markup being the language behind the page, XHTML or HTML for example are both Hyper Text Markup Languages.

XML is a Extensible Markup Language.

In human terms it's tags like <b>bold</b> and so on... If the language behind the page is correct and valid the handset has less work to do to render the page. Poor markup makes the phone think, makes it slower and eats more battery power ...

limomobi

05-06-2010, 04:38 PM

Thanks Andy for the explanation. Now I understand.:biggrin:

Jeremy

06-17-2010, 05:08 AM

Hello Andymoore and Limomobi,

I found you discussion and noticed that Andy you mentioned about getting mobile analytics. I was wondering if you had any preferences to which company to use? Have you tried different solutions? If you are interested QAim ***ers a solutions at (cem4mobile.com). We focus on helping you improve the customer experience by providing analytics about the end-user's behaviour, capabilities, environment and their opinions. If you are interested in trying the product or comparing it with your current solution you can pick up a free trial from cem4mobile.com. It would be interesting to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

Best Regards,

Jeremy QAim

gogo

06-17-2010, 06:37 AM

Hello everyone.

I was wondering if there are any successful .mobi commerce sites?

Particularly just a .mobi site without a sister .com site.

Also, if any owned by individuals rather than a large corporation.

.

Hi that's several separate, interesting questions.

Yes there are succesful mobile commerce sites.

Amongst them there have to be ones using .mobi names, but how many?

Standalone use of mobi, with marketing and promotioni: check out webtel.mobi (http://webtel.mobi/) , but are there others? Are there any that are seen by users as must-use sites that whole groups of people assume you know of? Ones that have become known brands?

Thanks for your response. The analytics which we provide may not be necessary for your companies. In business it is all about what is relevant, but keep in mind you get what you pay for. If a company is looking for more detail, accuracy, support, and/or features then it's worth knowing the options. Thanks again for your responses and best of luck with your businesses.